286 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



the one and the same Church. We and they are knit to- 

 gether in a bond of union so strong and so close that our 

 prayers help those who have not yet attained to the vision 

 and rest of God, while that great "white-robed army of mar- 

 tyrs" and the other saints who have attained to everlasting 

 happiness help us poor mortals who are struggling here in 

 this valley of tears. We are all one, the blessed in Heaven, 

 the suffering at the door of Heaven, and we who follow their 

 footsteps ; and our brethren who have gone before us help us 

 with their prayers at the Throne of Grace, exactly as they 

 would have done were they now on earth beside us in our 

 hours of struggle. And we help our brethren who need our 

 prayers as we would were they kneeling here beside us, that 

 they may the sooner be with the blessed brotherhood, the 

 Church Triumphant, before the Throne. This unity and 

 Catholicity is not only the unity that reaches around the 

 world, the Catholicity that spreads through all ages, all races 

 and all climes, but it is a unity and Catholicity that reaches 

 across the valley of death and carries along the serried ranks 

 of the saints clear up to the everlasting Throne of God. 



The Catholic Church teaches absolutely wholly and com- 

 pletely the doctrine of God the Trinity. Father, Son and Holy 

 Ghost, and that the second person of the Blessed Trinity, God 

 the Son, assumed our human nature and was made flesh — 

 being at the same time true man and true God — for our re- 

 demption and salvation, and consummated man's redemption 

 by His crucifixion and death upon Mount Calvary. It con- 

 fesses with Saint Peter with trumpet tones that "there is no 

 other name under heaven given to men, whereby we may be 

 saved" (Acts, iv, 12). The Incarnation of Our Lord Jesus 

 Christ is the central point of Catholic theology and doctrine. 

 It is not merely a feeble assent to the divinity of Our Lord; 

 it is the emphatic affirmation upon every occasion, at every 

 ceremony and form of worship, nay. throughout the hours of 

 every day, that God became man for our salvation and for 

 our lifting up to supernatural life. Not only do we say the 

 prayer which Our Lord Himself taught us, "Our Father, who 

 art in heaven," but we say in commemoration of the fact that 

 Our Lord God became man the words with which He sent that 

 message to the tender young maiden who was to bear Him 

 into this world and the very first salutation of that fact before 



